


The Sand Steed and the Raven

by semicolonlife



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Kink Meme, Mutual Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 15:23:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semicolonlife/pseuds/semicolonlife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gendry helps Arya release some tention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sand Steed and the Raven

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt fill for a Kink Meme: Older!Arya has been frustrated lately and Gendry is the one she's been taking it out for. Naturally, he's puzzled until he catches Arya trying to get herself off - albeit, unsuccessfully. Basically, I just want to see Gendry helping Arya relieve some tension and achieve orgasm, please! :)

“Where’s your horse?”

Gendry looks up, pushing back his hood and knocking loose a layer of snow, to find his horse missing. The chestnut mare, the one he calls Acorn in his mind, but don’t really name because horses die too often in winter, is still tied to the tree. His gray dappled one has gone and wondered off.

“Seven hells, you’re worthless.”

He sighs and gets to his feet, shoving the last bite of his dried venison into his mouth.

Arya cuts a wedge off their block of hard, yellow cheese with her knife. “Too stupid to even tie a proper knot.”

Now it doesn’t matter that Trix is good at pulling loose her reins when tethered and that she never wonders far and that she’s done this more times than Gendry can count and it don’t matter how bloody good he ties the damn knot, because Trix is a cunning horse. Nor does it matter that they haven’t seen another person in two days and getting back to the Brotherhood has taken them a week longer than expected and that it just keeps bloody snowing. And they’re both irritable and hungry and tired. And Arya has called him stupid and bullheaded and cowbrains and a bucketful of other names everyday and while that really don’t bother him usually, he just wants her to shut the fuck up.

“You need to get off or something, m’lady,” he snaps. “You’re bein’ a right bitch.”  
He stomps into the woods to find his horse. It’s easy to do. Following her tracks in the snow, Gendry finds the horse he thinks of as Trix but can’t really name pulling bark from a sweet maple.

When he leads her back and ties her back with Acorn, Arya glares at him, but is blissfully silent in her judgment. They don’t speak for the rest of the day.

 

That night they find an abandoned lean-to built against a rock face. There’s a roofed paddock that would work better for hogs, but he gets both their horses in and tied up tight. Inside, Arya has gotten a fire started in the earthen hearth. 

“I’ll take the first watch,” she says.

Gendry nods, takes his sleeping roll and furs, and is asleep as soon as he pulls off his boots.

He wakes some hours later, but he can tell its not quite time for his watch yet. He’s just about to roll over and go back to sleep when hears the noise. The noise that might have woken him. 

It’s a small feathery sound. Like a sob caught in the throat. Was she crying? The thought is bizarre, because he doesn’t think Arya knows how to cry. She might have known once, but somewhere between her father loosing his head and sailing back from Braavos, Arya’s forgotten how.

But no, this isn’t a sob. It’s a hitch of breath. He hears it again: hitch, h-hitch, h-h-hitch. Like desperate panting.

Gendry flicks his eyes over. Arya leans against the wall near the fire, which has burned low. Her knees are up, her eyes are screwed tight, and her hand is down her breeches.

Gendry watches. She’s six and ten now. It’s the third year of winter. It’s only natural. Gendry watches. Her hand moves fervently under the leather. How many weeks have they shared the road, a camp, a room, a bed and he’s never seen her like this. Where as he—he has woken up hard next to her and had to pinch himself until it subsided and he could get up to break his fast and he had caught glimpses of her changing and thinking on it would make him excuse himself to the privy to take himself in hand. And Gendry hates himself after each response, because when she returned he was a knight and she still wasn’t a lady, but she was different too, changed. But he could find traces of Arya in her, the old one, his friend whom he knew as Arry first. And that Arya was just a girl.

But Arya’s not a girl anymore. She groans in frustration. Gendry’s eyes look to her face as his hands work at his own laces. Her eyes are scrunched closed and her teeth grind together. There’s a desperate keen to her whimpering. Then she grunts once loud and stamps her foot hard enough to wake him if he already wasn’t. It’s not a sound of release. It’s annoyance and defeat.

Gendry stills and shuts his eyes. He hears Arya cursing at herself then get up and start to pace. “Stupid,” she says. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Gendry’s never heard her call herself stupid before. But he’s never once failed to finish.

He doesn’t fall back asleep. In an hour, Arya kicks lightly against this leg to rouse him. During his watch, Gendry listens and watches her very closely to see if she’ll try again, but she doesn’t. She just lies there perfectly still, but he can’t say that she actually sleeps.

 

They pack up slowly the next morning and in silence. Gendry singes himself stamping out their fire, but that doesn’t even raise a response from her.

He’s adjusting Trix’s bridle, but mostly watching Arya struggle to close her saddlebag. She makes the same frustrated huff and even stamps her foot.

“I could help you, you know.”

Arya snaps around to look at him. “I’ve got it.” She swings herself up onto Acorn.  
She doesn’t call him stupid.

They ride all day, eating in their saddles and only stopping once when they come to a river that’s not frozen over to water their horses. It’s early afternoon when they come across the inn and Gendry insists they stop. They have the gold from a Lannister man they caught a week back. Arya argues that it’s too soon to stop for the day.

“We could both use a real night of sleep,” he pushes. “And I’d kill for a hot meal. Maybe even a bath.”

It’s not a bath, but the bucket of water is warm and there’s actual soap. The food, while simple and costly, is good and filling and served with a pale ale that tastes like spring compared to the melted snow they’ve been drinking. There’s a bard, who plays better than he sings, but Gendry thinks he recognizes the song from the words he catches. Maybe Tom had once sung a song about a maiden of the tree.

Gendry drinks too much watching a clean-faced Arya jape with the other patrons. He’s heady when he strikes up from the table when she laughs too hard at some Stone from the Vale’s joke. Climbing the stairs to their room is a task. He keeps himself standing by leaning heavily against the wall.

He’s trying to close the door when she pushes through. “Drink too much?”

“Where’s yer friend?”

“Don’t be stupid.” She pushes him in the chest.

Gendry sits down hard on the bed. He kicks off his boots then pulls his shirt over his head.

Arya tosses aside her jerkin. “I think we should ride more south tomorrow. From what we heard, that’s where the Brotherhood has been more active. Did you hear me?” she asks.

“Huh?” He looks up from watching her hands pull out the ends of her shirt. It’s too big for her. Something she borrowed from him and it almost reaches her knees.  
Arya just rolls her eyes. “Go to sleep.”

He nods and climbs under the furs. She bars their door and tucks their few possessions under the foot of the bed, before stepping out of her breeches and climbing in on his right. She curls up with her back to him. Gendry stairs at the ceiling and tries not to think that if he’d stretch his fingers out, he could touch her.

He tries not to think of how easily she laughed down in the hall, when they haven’t joked for days. He thinks he should just turn to look at her, pull her shoulder back and make her explain why she thinks that Stone is so damn funny when a Waters is just a stupid bull.

And he’s still thinking, thinking too much, when the moon has climbed high into the sky and Arya calls his name softly. Wine and the lure of sleep keep him from opening his eyes, keep him from answering.

The bed jostles as she turns onto her back. Her shoulder brushes into his arm.

He’s on the cusp of dreams when she calls his name again. “You awake?”

And he wonders why she’s asking, because he ain’t moved since getting into this bed and there ain’t be a sound to be heard except her moving. And she should go to sleep too because they are paying a lot for this room. So he doesn’t say nothing and hopes she shuts up and goes to sleep.

But she don’t. She wouldn’t be Arya if she did what was expected of her.

And he’s not really aware what’s happening until it’s blatantly obvious and he thinks, sober now with the realization, maybe he is stupid.

She’s making that soft feathery pant. And her hand is moving fast with desperation and her elbow bumps into him, but she doesn’t notice. And he’s awake and alert, so he hears, “Gen—Gendry.” A shallow, fluttery word that shocks his system from crown to cock. “Come on,” she pants. “Come on. Oh, c’mon.”

He can almost tastes her desire to climax, the urgent want for release. So impatient, he thinks.

“Just slow down.”

Arya stops. He can’t even hear her breathing. 

And Gendry’s sure he’s stupid now. But he reasons, “If you went more slowly—”

“Shut up.”

“I only want to help—”

“If you do not shut up right now, I will stab you.” And she could. Arya sleeps with a dagger under her pillow.

But he doesn’t think she will. She’s just embarrassed at getting caught and Arya ain’t ever killed nobody for getting embarrassed. Gendry moves his hand under the furs. Her whole body tenses. His right hand ghosts along her left arm.

“Do you know the story about the race between the Sand Steed and the Raven?”

Arya crosses her arm. His hand is at her hip where her shirt is all bunched up. “There’s a race. The raven wins.”

Gendry looks at her then and smirks. “Do you draw nothing out?”

Arya bites her lip. Her gray eyes are dilated and glassy as if she’s the one who drank too much.

“Where does the race start?” he asks.

“The Citadel.”

“The Citadel in Old Town. Almost as south as south goes.” He moves his hand down. Arya’s breath hitches, but she doesn’t stop him. Her smallclothes are undone. His pushes his fingers through the hair between her legs, certain it must be as dark as that on her head. He wishes he could see. “The Maesters,” Gendry says. His voice is rough. “They have an important message to send. Where?”

“The Wal-ah-ah.” She grabs at his forearm. She closes her eyes. “The Wall.”

She is slick and warm. So that is not the problem. He wants to see her. To see his hand between her legs and parting her. To see how pink and wet she must be. To have her watch him work like she does sometimes when he’s at the anvil. But he knows there’s a spell at work; a spell that would be broken if he pulled aside the furs.

“This message is important.” He starts to move. Just his middle finger, to and fro, up and down. “It has to get there as quickly as possible. So they send the message with a Sand Steed and a Raven. Half the Maesters think the horse will win, and the other half the bird.

“The Sand Steed and the Raven leave at the same time. The Sand Steed takes the roads. He runs and runs and runs.” Gendry quickens his movement. Arya’s breath deepens. “The Roseroad to the Kingsroad. He runs, runs, runs. He runs day and night and never stops until…”

Arya’s not listening to him. “Until,” he prompts again and stops moving.

Her eyes flutter open and her head lists to look at him. “He dies. Just past the Neck.” She pushes at his arm. “The Raven though.”

Gendry smiles. He moves his fingers again. He finds her clit and rubs against it in a circle motion. Arya bucks against his hand. “The Raven, he flies straight north. Until he tires then rests until he can fly again. And he flies and flies then rests.” 

Gendry circles her clit again and again then traces her lips down to her entrance, which is tight but soaked. He can get a finger in and tries for another. Arya tilts her hips like a bloody natural, even though he knows now she’s never had a man in her bed. She pulls her heels up and lets her thighs spread wide, so her left one rests on top of his right. And she makes the most satisfying moan when his fingers fill her to his top knuckles. He pulls out and returns to the bud of nerves.

“And the Raven flies again. Flies then rest then flies then rest, both day and night.” He alternates his speed. How he touches her, where he touches her. And Gendry’s touching himself as well.

“He flies north, true north. Over towns and castles and across rivers and lakes.” Gendry is hard, the head leaking. Arya had her brow pressed into his shoulder, and he can feel each shallow breath on his arm. Her whole body is flush. It’s sweaty where his arm presses into her stomach. She pulls her tunic up.

“And after a rest he flies more. He flies and flies and—”

Arya’s hand tops his. “There,” she breaths against him.

Gendry repeats the motion, rubbing at her clit. “The Raven sees the Wall.” He increases his speed, because the finish is in sight. And Arya wiggles her hips under him. He’s watching the movement under the furs. He works at her and works and works until.

Until Arya comes.

Her whole body locks up, her back arching high. The sound she makes is more a howl than anything. The hand on his arm digs in nails. Then all her limbs release, She lies prone next to him, forcing deep breaths.

It is with reluctance that Gendry moves his hand. He trails the fingers up her thigh and rest it at the knee, tracing circles on her skin there with his thumb.

“So I was right, the Raven wins.”

Gendry looks at her. Arya looks up at him. Only she would—could. “And whose story was better told?”

She shifts onto her left side. “Oh, yours. By far. Best story I’ve heard.” Her hand snakes over his abdomen and buts into the hand stuffed down the front of his breeches. “Would you like me to tell a story now?”

Gendry takes his hand away. “I’ve been waiting to hear your stories for ages.”

In the morning, both of them look like hell and neither slept, but after breaking their fast, they head south and Gendry makes Arya laugh. Even if it’s because he finds Trix not in the stable, but behind the inn’s kitchen.


End file.
